Today we visited the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Hospital was the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond 'to care for the sick-poor and insane who were wandering the streets of Philadelphia." At that time, the city was the fastest-growing in the thirteen colonies. Lying on the Delaware River, it bustled with international sea trade and immigration. Whereas the nation was established as a melting pot, city leaders of the day ironically noted that Philadelphia was a "melting pot for diseases, where Europeans, Africans, and Indians engaged in free exchange of their respective infections."
The majority of patients that presented themselves at the Hospital in its earliest years were diagnosed as "Lunaticks" (sic). The eighteenth century heralded increased control of the insane through confinement and growing confidence in science's ability to understand and cure insanity through more aggressive medical treatment. Here we can see the tranquilizer chair, designed to slow down the fluid movement of agitated patients.
Christ Healing the Sick in the TemplePainted by Benjamin West
West was a Philadelphia native and the historical painter for King George III, and eventual president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The hospital's Board of Managers asked West to create the painting and donate it to the hospital, in 1800. West agreed and chose his subject to be "the redeemer of all mankind extending his aid to the afflicted of all ranks and condition."
The painting took 11 years to complete, and caused such a stir in England that West was pressured to sell it to the National Gallery for 3000 Guineas. West assured the Board of Managers that he would creat a second, better painting, and he did. In the second painting he added a "demoniac with his attendant relations" to pay homage to Pennsylvania Hospital's treatment of the mentally ill. It was delivered in 1817.
It is said that this was the first piece of fine art available to be seen by the general population in colonial America. After 12 months, an admission fee of 1 penny was charged to look at it. Over the next 25 years, the fees paid for the picture house and added $15,000 to the hospital's funds. For another penny, one was allowed to watch the insane people as they took their daily exercise in the yard.
The Great Court
The center section of the Hospital was designed as a buffer between two wings, to shield the physically ill people from the disturbing cries of the insane. Here were housed the officers and servants. The first floor was the administrative center (it is still usedfor that purpose today); also an apothecary and medical library, both the first in the nation. The Great Court was restored in 1976 for the nation's bicentennial using traditional colonial colors.
The Nation's First Surgical Ampitheatre
The surgeons who first used this room were considered skilled craftsmen. Surgeries were performed on sunny days only, between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm, because the skylight was the main source of illumination - there was no electricity at the time. Locals and medical students could pay a fee to watch surgical procedures, which included amputations, removal of internal and external tumors, bladder stones and cataracts; repair of hernias, and the setting of fractures.
Anesthesia was not used until the 1840's, at first only on women because of their supposed low tolerance for pain. Prior to anesthesia, sugeons would administer prodigious amounts of alcohol, or opium, or a swift blow to the head with a mallet to render the patient unconscious - and, hopefully, not dead.
I would have elected for the use of all three methods.
Sterile technique was not in use in the country before 1890. Surgeons washed their hands - after the procedure. They wore coats, to protect their clothing. The surgical coats were left on hooks in the ampitheatre and were not washed for years at a time.
Pictures and text in this posting have been borrowed from The Pennsylvania Hospital Walking Tour guidebook and from The University of Pennsylvania Health System's History of Pennsylvania Hospital's web site.
2 comments:
I would have elected for the use of all three methods.
lol
When I think about previous eras, this is the thing that always stops me dead in my tracks. You just wouldn't want to get sick or injured — you wouldn't even want a bad tooth. I can't imagine living in an era when that was the only medical care.
Charles Darwin started out to be a medical doctor, like his father. But he watched an operation on a child — with no anaesthetic, of course — and that did it for him. If I remember correctly, he fled before the operation was finished.
Fascinating history. The nerve of those damned immigrants bringing their foreign diseases to America! They're still at it, some would say.
I never knew that tid-bit about Darwin.
The colonial era was a time of great changes all over the world and in virtually all aspects of human life. I'm struck by the seeming naivety and brutality of the medical science of the time - I admit that I painted a slighted picture of the hospital by focusing on the mistakes that were made.
If I had not been so selective the post would have been over-long.
It was actually a great ethical step forward, to treat mental illnesses as a curable diseases rather. Before that, these people were treated more or less as sub-human.
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